Valiant Beyond: Bloodshot #1 (Alien Books, 2025)

On one hand, the art is nice. On the other, it's currently being discussed on Comics Twitter for a perceived controversy. Otherwise this is really not worth talking about, sadly. 

Valiant Beyond: Bloodshot #1, written by Mauro Mantella, art by Fernando Heinz Furukawa, colors by Brushu Studio and Rocio Zucchi, with letters by Ezequiel Inverni.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to First Issues Now, the weekly show
posted daily ish about only the newest first issues released
by insert comic company. Here this week, I'll be looking
at the comics released for the week of August thirteenth,
twenty twenty five. Even before reading this, I've seen Twitter
as a bit of buzz about one of the panels,
so it's always nice to really see if it's as

(00:22):
bad or as controversial as everyone online's making it out
to be. This is Valiant Beyond Bloodshot number one, written
by Marrow Mantela, art by Fernando Hines Fakawa, colors by
Briscy Studio and Rossio Zucci, with letters by Ezekiel Averni.
So the general premise of this book is there's a

(00:44):
new drug on the street called Bloodshot, which uses the
titular bloodshots super cool blood that makes him do whatever
the artist wants at the time to have people effectively
become vampires. Neat. Bloodshot is action heavy in dealing with
the vampire druggies trying to figure out where the drugs
are granted. By the end, it seems a Bloodshot at
betrayed by the government or a company or whatever he's

(01:05):
working for, and becomes a vampire himself. Oh nos, okay,
So I'm gonna talk about the controversy first, because there's
nothing else really to this book. So there's a panel
in this that talks about the vampire epidemic being on
the rise because parents are forcing their kids to go
through an irreversible change because they want to be hip.

(01:26):
It is in a vacuum somewhat ambiguous, especially since it
can also be put towards red hats and conservatives trying
to take their kids off vaccines and put them on
famed de wormer ivermectin as if it's a miracle drug
which gives them irreversible damage like polio or death. However,
Mara Mantella has also been fairly conservative in what he posts,

(01:47):
such as the failure of a meme trying to say
that feminism is actually against nuclear family. Anyways, he's got
some right wing leanings which paint that to definitely be
a transphobic take. Although Valiant Alien Books or whatever the
new name is under the Alien Books company also said
that it was a translation error, which I don't actually believe.

(02:07):
It's just bad optics. For a little bit of deep
dive into my past, I actually do make similar jokes,
and a lot of us do about people like standing
and praising the Terror and miss Cloud because they're posers
who want to do anything to change their lives except
change their lives. The biggest difference is that his reads
a lot more anti trans because well, mine was a
common during the death of X a decade ago compared

(02:31):
to the climate now. And I also don't retweet trad
con bullshit, however, something not being talked about because it's
not really easy to quantify as a single panel. I
also think that the usage of incel early early into
the comic for the disguise that Bloodshot has is also telling,
since he then goes on to kill the people who
made fun of him looking like an Inceel. Just saying

(02:53):
there's some minor dog whistling here. But beyond any of
that which is interesting to talk about, it's mostly whimsy
as hell because this book okay, okay, First, one positive
about the book is that it is a great looking book.
The art team makes this a great book to see visually,
but the writing really lets it down. This is a

(03:14):
very generic book. It's watching a dude do ECW spots
for CZW and then wondering why no one cares. All
I'm saying is as a dude who's been reading Valiant
since the relaunch it even before then when they were
starting off, I have praised Day a lot of it
because it wasn't just being generic. Even the humor of
this book is really stock or framed. If it's meant

(03:36):
to be for edgy teens who's never seen anything else. Dude,
bloodshot pisces on a vampire and he melts it because
he drank holy water earlier. WHOA. Now that could work
if it wasn't surrounded by what feels like something that
I'd have written after my first breakup in two thousand
and seven. It is a nothing book. So my verdict

(03:57):
is ignore it. Look, if you enjoy the idea of
a generic story with good art, then maybe you might
want to check it out. But honestly, I think it's
forgettable as a hell, and without the perceived shot at
the trans community, there wouldn't be any reason to even
tweet about it or even think about this book. It's
not worth the money to get. There's just nothing on

(04:18):
this that you're getting by seeing the instagrams of the artists.
I'm sorry, it's just your book's not that good, bro,
But maybe I'm wrong. Let me know about what you
thought of this issue over on Facebook at the Comic Archivist,
or Twitter at ajac Underscore does it All or Blue
Sky at AJAC does it All without any Underscore. Don't

(04:41):
forget to like, share, follow, and do all the stuff
that I'm being told is important to keep continuing doing
these episodes and more than anything though, Stig Golden Inklings